Study programmes

The 21st century biology takes an advantage of a major progress in many methodological approaches including genomics and proteomics. This has lead to an unprecedented growth of valuable biological data. The speed of sequencing of DNA (the major source of biological data today) has grown about 400x in the last 15 years. Other areas of biology are also shifting towards methods that generate large quantities of data and it is therefore hardly surprising that the amount biological data stored at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), the major repository of biological data in Europe, was close to 20 petabytes at the beginning of 2014. The amount of sequencing data alone doubles in less than a year at the EBI.
Bioinformatics is a relatively new field with the aim of making sense of the growing number of biological data and it concentrates also on deposition and distribution of biological data. The importance of bioinformatics for basic biological research, drug development, medical diagnostics or agriculture is therefore growing with every sequenced nucleotide and with every solved 3D structure and it is expected to grow further. There will be also a growing demand for experts (bioinformaticians) who can use existing bioinformatics algorithms or develop new ones.
Bioinformatics is a multidisciplinary field that combines biology, statistics and informatics – and this is going to be reflected in the study programme Bioinformatics. Two faculties of Charles University in Prague – Faculty of Mathematics and Physics and Faculty of Science join their forces to cover the spectrum of expertise needed to teach bioinformatics. They will be also supported by experts from European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg in one specialized bioinformatics course.
The study programme concentrates mainly on presenting the key concepts and methods in analysis of biological data. Students will not only gain theoretical knowledge, but they will get an opportunity to acquire practical skills in laboratories. An attention will be paid to currently available bioinformatics tools.
This study programme will be followed by a two-year master degree that will put an emphasis on gaining specific bioinformatics skills that will be built on the solid background of Bc. degree in bioinformatics.